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If you are reading this on the screen of your beloved old BlackBerry, the Waterloo-based company wants you to know just how much you mean to them. Their latest phone, the BlackBerry Classic is meant just for you.

With the return of the ‘belt’ — the string of buttons below the screen, centred by the return of the trackpad — this is a less weird phone than the company’s recent Passport, but it’s trying to do something that has been unusually hard for the company — get the die-hard segment of their installed base to upgrade to a new phone — so they made a phone that hearkens back to one of their greatest hits, the Bold.

It is to those legacy users that I say it is worth checking out this phone. Definitely bigger than the family of Bold products it aims to replace, that results in a bigger 3.5-inch screen, a roomier keyboard and a powerful 2515 mAh battery that I got two days of regular use out of. That battery is likely what adds some weight to the phone, making it feel a bit heavy, but it feels enjoyably solid, and it solves one of my complaints with the Passport, in that it feels good to do the BlackBerry power grip or claw/hand cradle for typing.

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The belt adds a point of recognition and comfort level for those legacy users that are being targeted, but it didn’t add much for me. At first it added a confusing layer of navigation, so I was just using the back button, but eventually reverted to just using the touchscreen to get where I needed.

It is unlikely that this phone will bring many new customers, but that is not what it's trying to do. For the specific customer it's targetting, the Classic at least warrants a look, says reviewer. (Vince Talotta / Toronto Star) | Order this photo

The phone also comes with the company’s latest version of the company’s OS 10.3.1, and while there are minor improvements, mostly to notifications and another series of quick access menu buttons above the belt. But overall the software is one of the things that I consider a success of BlackBerry phones over the past two years. The messaging hub, the app flow and the phone’s multi-tasking capabilities are strengths of the phone and all continue to work well. BlackBerry Blend, a remote access tool that allows mirroring control of your PC is also a neat productivity feature.

If there is a knock on this phone, it is that the specifications are not as top of the line as their top-end competitors, like the screen only has a 720 x 720 resolution, which looks OK, but is nowhere the bright brilliant screens of the latest iPhones or Androids. The two cameras — a 2 mp on the front and 8 mp on the back — also work fine, but again, bigger numbers adorn other phones. As well, even with access to the Amazon App store, apps are still a weakness compared to the other guys.

But in the company’s defence, it is clear that the user base they are targeting don’t need the top of the line specs, particularly if they are still making do with older phones. What those people really love is the keyboard and the no frills sense of business productivity that helped make the company’s products so beloved by its user base in the first place.

Nostalgia and technology are a strangely powerful combination. BlackBerry is a company that that took too long to catch up with competitors, but has done some laudable things with their software, such as an impressively fast browser.

Where they have missed is trying to find the right hardware to reignite their customer base. It is unlikely that this phone will bring many new customers, but that’s not what it’s trying to do. This is for that very specific customer, one that is clearly reluctant to change, but for them, I think the Classic does enough to at least warrant a look, and more importantly, worth giving an in-store typing test to see if there is enough here to give the company another chance.

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